As women we have all heard of the biological clock, Tick Tock, Tick Tock. But what can it mean to you personally. As a successful woman, you go to college, get an education, set a career path, work hard to prove yourself, you date and MAYBE find Mr. or Ms. Wonderful in your late twenty’s. The statistics show the average age to marry is now twenty-seven. You spend a couple years enjoying each others company, buying a house, and trying to do the “responsible things.” As a woman your peak years of fertility have passed you by. Also, what if Mr.or Ms. Wonderful wasn’t so wonderful after all? Tick Tock, Tick, Tock…Starting over.
Now the next scenario; you are in your thirty’s and you have done all the above things on your own or you are “starting over” or Mr. / Ms. Wonderful has not arrived on the scene, but the dream of having a child has not diminished. What are your options? Well, if you have the financial resources, are emotionally strong enough, and have a good circle of family and friends for support, you can go it alone. You do have several options; adoption, inseminations, IVF, donor eggs and donor embryos. You will most likely need to pay out of pocket for any one of these. With proven fertility issues some insurance’s will pay a portion of costs, but this is dependant on each individual insurance plan. The first step is deciding what option is right for you. Once a decision is made, check your insurance plan, meet with a fertility specialist, get a sperm donor, do Intra-uterine inseminations or IVF, hopefully get pregnant and move forward. If there are extra embryos they can be cryopreserved (frozen) for future use.
What if you are not ready to have a baby right now, but you are in your upper thirty’s, Tick Tock, Tick, Tock, the window of opportunity is closing to use your own eggs with good potential for fertilization? But, you want to keep your options open. Have you thought about freezing your eggs or embryos?If you are considering freezing your eggs, insurance companies still view this as experimental and it is not a covered benefit. You will be looking at paying for treatment out of pocket. This option allows you to bank some of your eggs after undergoing an IVF cycle, to have the eggs retrieved after a course of stimulation medication and cryopreserve them. They can be fertilized at a later date with either a future partner’s sperm or donor sperm.
You can also cryopreserve embryos. This process starts out just like the process previously explained but goes a step further. The eggs are inseminated with donor sperm to create embryos to be cryopreserved for future use.
***Remember that a future partner would have no genetic link to a child resulting from the use of these embryos. This process will also have limited or no insurance coverage depending on your policy.
Probably the hardest thing to hear and understand is that our eggs don’t handle the aging process the same as a man’s sperm (as explained in a previous BLOG.) Presently our changing social demographics and human physiology don’t match up. Forty may be the new thirty but our biological clock hasn’t gotten the message. Tick Tock Tick Tock.
There are 2 other options that can be explored, if you are told that your own eggs cannot be used. Those would be using donor eggs and either a partner’s sperm or donor sperm to create embryos that would be transferred to your uterus (no genetic link to the female parent) or using donated embryos that have been created by another couple and donated anonymously to a woman or couple desiring to have a child (no genetic link to either potential parent.) For some women, the desire to carry a pregnancy rather than adopt can make these last 2 options reason for more exploration and research.
With any of the above options, the first step is an open and frank discussion with your physician,
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